Full Description
The war on terror is remaking conventional warfare. The protracted battle against a non-state organization, the demise of the confinement of hostilities to an identifiable battlefield, the extensive involvement of civilian combatants, and the development of new and more precise military technologies have all conspired to require a rethinking of the law and morality of war. Just war theory, as traditionally articulated, seems ill-suited to justify many of the practices of the war on terror. The raid against Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound was the highest profile example of this strategy, but the issues raised by this technique cast a far broader net: every week the U.S. military and CIA launch remotely piloted drones to track suspected terrorists in hopes of launching a missile strike against them.
In addition to the public condemnation that these attacks have generated in some countries, the legal and moral basis for the use of this technique is problematic. Is the U.S. government correct that nations attacked by terrorists have the right to respond in self-defense by targeting specific terrorists for summary killing? Is there a limit to who can legitimately be placed on the list? There is also widespread disagreement about whether suspected terrorists should be considered combatants subject to the risk of lawful killing under the laws of war or civilians protected by international humanitarian law. Complicating the moral and legal calculus is the fact that innocent bystanders are often killed or injured in these attacks. This book addresses these issues. Featuring chapters by an unrivalled set of experts, it discusses all aspects of targeted killing, making it unmissable reading for anyone interested in the implications of this practice.
Contents
PREFACE ; Introduction ; PART I: THE CHANGING FACE OF WAR: TARGETING NON-COMBATANTS ; 1. Allowing the State to Rebut the Civilian Presumption: Playing Whack-A-Mole Without a Mallet? ; 2. Targeting Co-belligerents ; 3. Can Just War Theory Justify Targeted Killing? Three Possible Models ; 4. Justifying Targeted Killing With a Neutral Principle? ; PART II: NORMATIVE FOUNDATIONS: LAW ENFORCEMENT OR WAR? ; 5. The Ethics of Targeted Killing on a Moral Continuum ; 6. Targeted Killing as Preemptive Action ; 7. The Privilege of Belligerency and Formal Declarations of War ; PART III: TARGETED KILLING AND SELF-DEFENSE ; 8. Going Medieval: Targeted Killing, Self-Defense, and the Jus ad Bellum Regime ; 9. Imminence in Justified Targeted Killing ; 10. Defending Defensive Targeted Killings ; PART IV: EXERCISING JUDGMENT IN TARGETED KILLING DECISIONS ; 11. The Importance of Criteria-Based Reasoning in Targeted Killing Decisions ; 12. Are Targeted Killings Unlawful? A Case Study in Empirical Claims without Empirical Evidence ; 13. Operation Neptune Spear: Was Killing Bin Laden a Legitimate Military Objective? ; 14. Efficiency in Bello and ad Bellum: Making the Use of Force Too Easy? ; PART V: UTILITARIAN TRADE-OFFS AND DEONTOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS ; 15. Targeted Killing and the Logic of Double Effect ; 16. Targeted Killings and the Morality of Hard Choices ; 17. Targeted Killing and the Strategic use of Self-Defense ; INDEX
